Friday, June 15, 2012

Well, the title may be a bit strong, but NRA members are being encouraged to purchase exclusive 'self defense' insurance. The insurance would cover civil and criminal legal fees for shooting someone in self defense. Although it should be noted that you only get your criminal fees back if you are acquited or the charges are dropped. So, y'know, it's only a little crazy, not totally crazy.

I would like to take this opportunity to launch my far less expensive "don't shoot people"(tm) defense plan. If you pay me just $50 a year I will send you a daily email which states:

Do not shoot anyone today. Yes, even if they are trying to take your stuff. If you think someone wants to hurt you, try going somewhere where they are not.

As an added bonus to the plan, if you actively retreat from someone and they track you down with a deadly weapon and you are forced to shoot them, and you are still prosecuted with a crime, then I will personally fly to your location and take the bar exam in your state and defend you for free.

2 comments:

I'd also add that the real victors in this kind of scheme are the lawyers.

The NRA encourages a gun culture, which encourages people to shoot other people. This, of course, leads to law suits and criminal prosecutions (good for lawyers). Then we add an insurance scam on top of it all to make sure the attorneys get paid.

It's vaguely like the idea of Post-Rapture Pet Insurance that someone floated last year, except the NRA has a their political mailing list to use to market the service, and will thus probably be able to turn this into a successful business.

As a sometime consumer of legal services, I also note that they'll only pay out upon the favorable disposition of your criminal case, so even if you have the insurance, you're still going to have to figure out where you'll come up with the money to pay for the retainer and fees out of pocket until after the case is resolved. It's going to be both hilarious and depressing to hear about the first guy with such an insurance plan who finds out that even after making annual payments for five years, he's still stuck relying upon whatever public defender the court sticks him with.